SCUBA Jen

When I first moved into my room at Alton's Dive shop, my only roommate was a giant bright green grasshopper. She was a good roommate. Don't know her name because I don't speak grasshopper. Anways, she was replaced by a human roommate yesterday--Michelle from somewhere--who is great too. Not so lonely in my room now.

Not so lonely on the island now in general. The first day was pretty lonely. All the other students were already friends and never around, so I was left chatting with a bunch of the master divers in training. This actually ended up being a great thing since John from Wales and Derrick from Holland are both good fun and happy to hang out and just chit chat. There's also a snack shack on the dock ran by this crazy guy from Texas who is good to hang with as well. He just talks about making food all the time, which I don't mind seeing as most everything I've eaten includes beans (not strawberry rhubarb pie, which Jeffrey, the Texan described how to make in detail the other day). I haven't really felt lonely since that first day, and am actually thinking it will be hard to move on again since there are such characters around!

Yesterday was my first real dive. I had some trouble the first day of diving where we just practiced breathing in shallow water. I started to panic a bit and we ended up taking a 15 min break before getting back in. When we did it was clearer (the first time underwater I couldn't even see my instructor 2 feet in front of me!) and pretty amazing. The first real dive was incredible. We went down to 12m and explored the beautiful coral reef that just seems to go on forever. There is too much life down there to even begin to try describe. Just imagine bright purple lacey sponges, or long white and brown spotted fish that scrunch up when they feel threatened. Best of all, it was so noisy! You could actually hear all the creatures snip-snappy crackety-cracking. It was great!

When we came back to surface, though, not so great. It was cold, and rainy AND windy--which means WAVY! As soon as I reached the surface I started feeling queasy (probably doesn't help that I had swallowed some sea water!). On the boat for our 30 min rest it was even worse. My instructor started explaining our next dive, and I started puking overboard. For the rest of our break I was throwing up. Finally, my instructor had me get back into the water and gear up before puking a little more and then going down for our second dive. The second dive was just as great as the first, and we even saw a sea turtle right before we came up!

I'm almost a certified open water diver now, and I'm hoping it will stay clear today for my dives this afternoon. I think I'll rent a bike this morning and explore the island before heading out, though. Besos!